Analytics: What Happened In 2017 And Where Is 2018 Going?

Every year, the nice folks at BIBlogg.no reach out to various experts to get their opinions on the greatest trends in analytics. You can get the full list of answers here, but here are my answers to their questions:

What was, in your opinion, the most important thing that happened in analytics in 2017?

The biggest change was a massive wave of publicity about the power of data, with many algorithmic breakthroughs. Computers are now better at transcribing speech, reading lips, and tagging images than people. AlphaGo Zero bested 2,000 years of human learning about the strategy of Go in just three days, with no prior knowledge of the game! The result was that use of data to change how society works was discussed at levels never before seen. Data and analytics has been the hottest thing in the IT industry for decades, and in business for several years — but now it’s the hottest thing in society as a whole!

What is, in your opinion, the most important thing that will happen in analytics in 2018?

Big Data is said to be a dying term, and business intelligence appears to go the same direction. Do you agree with this, and if so, what do you think is the best term that can replace these?

Ironically, this isn’t backed up by the available data, at least according to Google Trends — in fact, all terms associated with any aspect of analytics are on the rise. Personally, I hate semantic or nomenclature wars. They’re a complete waste of time for everybody except the analysts and bloggers that get traffic from writing polemic articles about how somebody else is using a term incorrectly. Instead of arguing over words, everybody should concentrate on making sure that there are no misunderstandings on a particular project, that everybody agrees on what information is to be made available, and why, and how.

What new concepts and buzzwords do you think will appear in analytics in 2018?

Big Data warehousing will become mainstream, seamlessly combining data lakes and enterprise data warehouses into a single architecture using data catalogs, data orchestration, and data pipelines.

Operations and analytics come together. It’s been a long time coming, but “HTAP” (hybrid transactional analytical processing) or “Translytic” architectures are poised for huge growth, powered by a new generation of in-memory ERP systems that enable real-time analytics and decision-making as part of business transactions.

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